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Space

PROFILE: The First Queer Astronaut

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Sally Ride

For eons, humanity has looked towards the stars and yearned to reach them – to explore distant moons and planets, and touch the very edges of the universe. In the last 50 years, we have made incredible progress, setting foot on the moon, landing robots on Mars and even beaming pictures back from as far away as Pluto. An important part of that journey was Sally Ride, the first known LGBT astronaut. More than 330 American astronauts have made it to space, but Ride was the first American woman – and LGBT person – to go into space, taking the … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find a “Warm Neptune”

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warm Neptune

A study combining observations from NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveals that the distant planet HAT-P-26b has a primitive atmosphere composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. Located about 437 light-years away, HAT-P-26b orbits a star roughly twice as old as the sun. The analysis is one of the most detailed studies to date of a “warm Neptune,” or a planet that is Neptune-sized and close to its star. The researchers determined that HAT-P-26b’s atmosphere is relatively clear of clouds and has a strong water signature, although the planet is not a water world. This is the best measurement … Read more

SPACE: Beautiful New Video of Jupiter

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Jupiter South Pole

NASA released a beautiful new video of Jupiter, showing the Solar System’s largest planet in a way we’ve never seen it before. The images were taken by the Cassini spacecraft, and include huge circular storms in the planet’s atmosphere. Enjoy!

SPACE: A Cold and Frozen Alter-Earth

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oggie - pixabay

Astronomers, using a technique called microlensing, have discovered a planet about the size of Earth that orbits about the same distance from its sun. The catch? The sun is a brown dwarf – a tiny body that not even all astrophysicists agree is really a star. As a result, OGLE-2016-BLG-1195Lb (we’ll just call it “oggie”) is a frozen world. ”This ‘iceball’ planet is the lowest-mass planet ever found through microlensing,” Yossi Shvartzvald, at NASA’s JPL in Pasadena said. Maybe it has great ski resorts?  

SPACE: Three Planet Hunters Make Time List

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Planet Hunters

Three extraordinary planet-hunters have been recognized by TIME Magazine as this year’s top 100 most influential people: Natalie Batalha from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; Michael Gillon from the University of Liège in Belgium; and Guillem Anglada-Escudé from the Queen Mary University in London. “It is truly exciting to see these planet-hunters among the other movers and the shakers of the world,” said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics division director at Headquarters in Washington. “These scientists have transformed the world’s understanding of our place in the universe, and NASA congratulates them for their well-deserved recognition.” Natalie Batalha is the … Read more

SPACE: Another Super Earth Found

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Super Earth

It seems like only yesterday when scientists announced the discovery of yet another “super-Earth.” Last year, a half-lava, half-rock world, dubbed 55 Cancri e, was found around 40 light-years from Earth and was determined to be twice the size of our home planet. And now it has happened again. Researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have announced the discovery of a new super-Earth, designated LHS 1140b, orbiting the habitable zone of a small red dwarf star, LHS 1140, about 39 light-years away. (It’s 4.2 light-years from our sun to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri.) By Lee Speigel – … Read more

Where No Gay Has Gone Before: Fashionistas in Space!

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When many of us hear the word ‘fabrics’, we immediately think of avant-garde, haute couture dresses, the latest fashions from Paris, or ‘who-is-wearing-who’ on the Red Carpet.  In space exploration, however, fabrics have more applications than for just snazzy clothes, like antennas, spacesuits and shields for spacecraft. Raul Polit Casillas, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is the son of a fashion designer from Spain, so he grew up familiar with fabrics.  Now he is applying his knowledge and skills to develop woven metal fabrics for applications in space. The fabrics that Polit Casillas and … Read more

SPACE: NASA Budget Not Worried About Near Earth Asteroid

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asteroid - pixabay

Last month, President Donald Trump signed a bill into law giving NASA $19.5 billion to spend on a variety of projects in the 2018 budget year, including planning further exploration of the planet Mars. From the Oval Office, the president said: For almost six decades, NASA’s work has inspired millions and millions of Americans to imagine distant worlds and a better future right here on Earth. I’m delighted to sign this bill. It’s been a long time since a bill like this has been signed, reaffirming our national commitment to the core mission of NASA: human space exploration, space science … Read more